Once more, for love
by planet p
Summary: Okay, let’s try this again! Sequel to Once more, for science.
1. Chapter 1

**Once more, for love** by planet p

**Disclaimer** I don't own _the Pretender_ or any of its characters. I don't own _Can't Take My Eyes off You_.

**Author's Note** Sequel to _Once more, for science_.

* * *

2023

Jarod frowned at the files stored in the biomech. They were encrypted. He'd tried to decrypt them the first time he'd been given the biomech, but with no success, and then everything had just gotten away from him and he'd forgotten all about the biomech. He sighed, deciding that this time he'd give it a real shot, this time he'd break the encryption, this time he'd be able to read the files.

* * *

Jimmy stared into the mirror at the two small crater-like marks on his forehead, one almost between his eyes but more to the right, and the other more centred but further up, like where monsters in movies sometimes had a third eye, and wondered if they were birthmarks.

He could remember hardly anything about his past before he'd met Owen, before he'd been standing on the side of the road and Owen had pulled over to give him a lift. Only sometimes, he remembered that he'd had a friend called Bobby, who had presumably been a boy, and then sometimes he thought that Bobby must have been a girl, though he didn't know why, and he supposed he was confusing Bobby with a girl he had once known, or maybe Bobby had been a girl.

He turned away from his reflection, pausing for a moment and turning back to fix his nametag in the mirror, and walked out of the staff bathroom. Owen had got him a job at his uncle, Ian's, business, Robin's Coffee Mart, where he and his cousin, May, also worked when they were not attending school.

* * *

Alex sat in the dark, watching as shadows shifted across Laura's sleeping form as she breathed. He closed his eyes for a moment and listened hard, straining to hear Laura, or even the small child's breathing, but he only heard the steady sound of his own breathing. He stood, his eyes shifting momentarily to where he knew Lili, the small child, lay, sleeping too, then back to her mother. He carefully made his way over to the bed in which Laura lay, and stood very still, staring into her face. For a moment, he wondered what she was dreaming, but he couldn't even say for certain that she was dreaming. His eyes wandered to her lips, and he stood there, staring for a long time, wondering what she would say to him if she was to ever wake up, if she woke up and found him standing over her like that, just staring. He shuffled closer and leant down so that he could hear her breathing, but she was breathing so calmly it was hard to hear, so he leant a bit closer. Her breath brushed his cheek gently. He leant even closer. Her lips were dry against his own, but they were warm, so he didn't mind. Then he was on top of her, on the bed, and he could feel the rise and fall of her chest in her abdomen and against the sides of his legs straddling her body. He kissed her harder, wetting her lips, lowered on top of her so that he could feel her breathing because her chest rose up and pushed her breasts against his own chest before her chest fell again. He pushed a hand into her hair, another around the back of her neck. The skin was warm and soft when he squeezed it, but dry, like her lips had been. He shifted on top of her and pressed his lips to the side of her neck. He shifted again and found that it felt good. He'd never been with a woman before – well, apart from the one time in the hospital with Laura, though he hadn't really had a choice – he'd never been allowed, they hadn't trusted him not to hurt them. He shifted again and a low moan rolled around his throat, but the sound was muted by his lips on Laura's neck.

He remembered the time Kyle had accused him of hurting Alicia, accused him of killing her. He'd been sixteen, and Kyle ten, just a child. But an angry child. Kyle had lunged at him, had tried to hurt him, had been screaming, screaming horribly, and he'd just stood there, with a blank look on his face, stood there as nurses took hold of Kyle, as they took him away. He'd wanted to do something other than stand and stare so badly – Allie was gone – maybe cry, maybe shout back at Kyle, and then when the nurses had come, he had wanted to shout at them, "No, let him come! Let him hurt me! Please don't hurt him! Don't take him away too!" but he'd just stood there. Stood there and stared. He was sure, if he'd had a heart, it would have broken then.

He groaned, his hand leaving Laura's hair and sliding down her body, his mouth still at her neck, his breath coming more quickly now. He forced the hand under Laura's body, under her bottom, and pulled her up against him, and then both of his hands were on her bottom, and he shifted and pulled her tighter against him, and he could hear himself moaning, but Laura didn't make a sound.

He remembered Kyle proudly telling him about a girl. A girl he was in love with. A girl who had been his first. Fuck, he loved her so much, he'd growled. What sort of a fucking witch was she? But she wasn't his anymore, and the little motherfucker she belonged to wasn't giving her up. The fucker had actually threatened to kill him, imagine, pulled out a fucking gun and pointed it right at him. People had been staring, but did the little fucker care? No! Until she'd seen. He'd almost felt bad for him, Kyle had told him, except for that he was a sick fucking puppy, child fucking fucker. Alex had refrained from telling him that there were cleaner ways to say these things. "That little fucker!" Kyle had shouted, and started laughing.

Alex moaned and pulled himself away from Laura, tripped and fell to the floor, picked himself back up, shaking, and ran to the bathroom. Oh fuck! What the fuck was wrong with him? Fuck! He slammed the bathroom door shut and slid down the hard surface to the floor, tears splashing onto his hands and the legs of his pants, shaking all over. Oh fuck! He was fucked up! Laura was in a fucking coma! And Lili- Lili? Lili was right there! Asleep, listening to all of it! Fuck! He hugged his knees to his chest and cried. Then he leapt to his feet and was sick in the bathroom sink, unable to stop crying.

Lin, her name had been Lin, he thought distantly, beautiful, kind, wonderful, fucking delicious Lin. And then the motherfucking child fucker had killed her. He just couldn't stand to share her with anyone, the sick puppy fucker. So he'd bashed her brains out. Probably fucked her lifeless body, then the fucking kid. _"A normal kid gets upset when its mommy dies, real upset like. This one, not even a peep."_

Kyle had told Alex about the little girl before. Baby doll. Witch doll. Mrs. Fucking Sydney Penguin. But never her name.

"_I'll fix him though," Kyle promised. "I'll fix him real good. Pretty little baby doll'll look real fucking good in one of those little fucking prissed pussy schoolgirl dresses. Fucking delicious. I'll fuck her brains out."_

_That was when Alex slapped him._

Alex lay down on the cold, hard floor and cried himself to sleep.

* * *

She wasn't sure which of them started it now – was it one of them, or both of them? – yet, for reasons she could not think about, she dared not ask. She was afraid of who would find out, afraid of what they'd say, yet she couldn't stop. She was afraid _he_ would find out, but still, she could not stop. She would die if _he_ found out – her husband.

She liked the way he said her name, she loved the way he said everything, loved the way he fucked her. She loved the way he told her what he would do to her, softly, speaking into her skin, breath rough and hot, the invisible scars left afterward.

She loved the way he touched her, held her, teased her. She loved the way he made coffee, or played something she vaguely remembered she'd said she'd liked – even if he didn't.

How she'd come to this, she could not say. Didn't her husband love her? And didn't she love him back? Yes, her husband loved her, and yes, she loved him back. Yet, she could not live without _him_, could not think, and she died each day, again, when she thought that one day – one day – he would have to leave her.

She died when something hurt him, died when she thought of herself before – how she'd hurt him – how she'd hurt the ones he loved, hurt the ones she loved.

It would hurt her husband if he knew. She thought that it hurt him too. She told him constantly that she still loved her husband – she told him constantly in her mind – that what they had had not changed that, that, if anything, it had strengthened her love for her husband.

If one of them had to take the blame – if it came to that – she knew it would be her. She would not let him take it. And she knew as she gazed down at the little blue strip clutched in her shaking – excited, terrified – hands, that that time drew nearer with every breath.

She longed to run to him, to wrap arms around him, to whisper their secret into his skin, but at the same time the thought terrified her. She knew then, that at the moment she told him, that he would no longer believe that nothing had changed. Everything – everything – had changed. She knew that if she lied to her husband about the baby – if she said it was his – she would risk losing _him_ forever, and risk losing her husband when he found out, risk losing everything and everyone they both cared about.

And suddenly she was alone, because she could not tell him – not now, not yet – she could tell no one. She wanted so much to tell him, or her sister. But her sister could not understand. Her heart ached. She needed to tell someone! She needed to tell someone before she did something, needed someone to stop her if it came to that. She could not hurt _their_ baby! But she could not trust herself. And suddenly, the end opened up hungrily in front of her, so near now, and so, so black.

* * *

Parker held tight to her as she sobbed and hiccuped and choked. What was wrong? Had something happened? Was she ill? Oh God, was she dying?

Paulie sucked in a deep, shuddering breath and before she could stop it, the words fell out. "I'm pregnant."

Parker stared at her, eyes wide, and Paulie saw what would come next, like seeing a little snippet of the future, and it tore her heart apart.

"Broots isn't the father," she choked.

She saw the look of confusion, and then: "Who?" A whisper.

She choked, trying hard not to start crying again, but she couldn't lie to her _sister_! Her voice was a breath. "Sydney." Tears cascaded down her face, blurring her vision of Parker's face.

Parker let go of her suddenly as though burned and jumped to her feet.

The utter disgust and fury Paulie saw on her face scared the tears right out of her.

"Get out!" Parker told her in a clear, level voice.

Her legs shaking uncontrollably, Paulie pushed herself to her feet, feeling as though she would collapse. "Mel!" she pleaded, her voice breaking.

"GET OUT!" Parker shrieked, losing her last shred of self-control, finger pointed at the door, arm shaking.

"Mel!" Paulie whimpered.

Parker walked toward her, done with words, her face a mask of pure hatred, her steps, alone, strangely measured and calm.

Paulie whimpered again and ran, terrified, from the room, and out of the house. She knew as she stumbled toward her car, disoriented and feeling sick to her stomach, that Parker would already be on the phone to Broots.

* * *

Parker walked calmly across the lounge room to the sofa, and fell down and cried horribly, and the worst part of all was that she had no one to hold.

* * *

_He found her outside in the parking lot, staring into nothingness as the radio played faintly over the outside stereos, receiving fair competition from the ocean breeze that had blown up into a gust. She, of course, hadn't noticed him until he had her halfway across the parking lot, pulling her by the arm towards his car. She started to struggle._

"_Aren't you hungry, Melody? You haven't eaten anything all morning and it is now lunchtime."_

_Parker growled. She was 22. She wasn't going to stand for his pushing her around. And he was drunk! At work! He had that annoying British accent back that he had made a point of losing after Annie's disappearance. And he'd called her Melody! She tried to put up a fight but he went right on dragging her in front of him._

"_Think of it this way, Mel. I don't want to talk about whiny little girl problems. I don't want to reprimand you over your wardrobe. I just want you to come to lunch with me."_

"_I don't want to go anywhere with you!" Parker scowled horribly._

"_You just stop me now, Mel." He opened the car door, sat her in her seat, and slammed the car door shut, already moving around to the other side._

_Parker fumed, pointedly ignoring her seat belt._

_She sat at the bakery's one window table. She wasn't in the mood for eating, after the way he had been driving! Just where had he learnt to drive? She had settled for a coffee and presently slipped the dinner mint that had came with her drink into the pocket of her daddy's old college jacket, which she was wearing._

_Raines placed his coffee down on the table in front of him, sitting across from her, and frowned. "Mel, your melancholy is infectious. Would it hurt to smile once in a while?"_

_Parker glared._

_Raines stood and leant across the table and pinched her in the arm._

_Parker yowled and jumped up out of her seat. "How dare you?" she scowled, and, coffee forgotten, dived around the table._

_Raines hurried toward the door. Now he'd really done it!_

_Parker raced after him._

_Raines ducked into a new department store he had noticed before and hid behind a shelf of stationary. A woman walking by in the aisle adjacent frowned. He shot her a wink and she thankfully hurried off. He sighed and closed his eyes for a moment to catch his breath, and upon opening his eyes, he was met with the image of a very angry Parker, jaw set and arms folder severely._

"_I-" He attempted to back away but there was nowhere to go. He stepped to the right, Parker mirroring his action. A step to the left and she was right there if front of him again._

"_You pinched me!" Parker accused in a deadly voice._

_Raines grimaced, chuckling softly. "I- I did," he confessed, scratching his arm, "and… f-for that I am very sorry." He took an advancing step towards the young woman and took up her arm, in mind of pushing up her jacket sleeve to check for bruises._

_Parker pulled her arm from his grasp with a disgusted click in the back of her throat. She glared directly into his eyes for a moment before turning away and sweeping off down the aisle._

"_M-Mel?" Raines whined, dashing to catch her up. He turned to face her and walked backwards for a moment. "Look, Mel, let me make it up to you!"_

_Parker ignored him, arms crossed tightly as if in a defensive manner. She turned around the corner, a smirk coming to her lips when Raines walked straight into a rack of clothes and knocked the whole thing over, including himself._

_She slowed but didn't stop, looking back to watch Raines pick first himself up off the floor and then the rack, making an absolute fool of himself by apologising profusely to the rack. "I'm terribly sorry about that. Yeah, I just didn't see- Well, I was walking b- The point is- The point is, I'm very sorry. What I'm trying to say is-" He shook his head. "What the Hell am I doing, I'm apologising to a frigging clothes rack!" He stepped around the rack and casually walked up to Parker, who had looked quickly back to the front to avoid him catching her watching him. "I really am sorry," he told the rack nervously, and hurried off. "Mel?" he whined._

_Parker ignored him, acting as though she couldn't hear him and charging on ahead._

"_Mel?" Raines came up in front of her and physically stopped her, holding her upper arms._

_Parker attempted to pull away from him, but not with any real effort._

"_Look, Mel, if you intend to go on like this all day, I suggest you just pinch me now and we call it even!" He released his hold on her and stuck out his arm._

_Parker glared horribly and pinched his arm, making sure to make it hurt a little._

_Raines winced but made no protests. "Feel better now?" he asked, rubbing his arm._

_Parker huffed and stalked off past him._

_Raines sighed and followed after her, two steps behind._

_Parker made a point to look through three racks of women's clothing; finding nothing to her liking there, she left to check out the themed feature section. She looked at shoes and belts and bags. After a while, she realised that she really was hungry. She turned to Raines and glared. "You said you wanted to take me out to lunch!"_

_Raines nodded._

_Parker stalked away toward the exit, without any further words._

_Raines decided to take her to a hotel to get 'something proper to eat' and Parker sat with her arms crossed and chin raised, the picture of the spoilt little girl she was. There was a band playing and Parker wished they would just stop._

_She sipped her Coke through a straw as she waited for her meal to arrive, her gaze cast downward._

_Raines took the straw from her and lifted her chin up. "You're doing it again, love."_

_He hadn't seriously just called her 'love'? Parker shot him an irritated frown and growled as he took her arm. She brushed his hand away and leapt to her feet, glaring._

"_Dance with me, Melody."_

"_What?" Parker's chin shot up from smoothing her skirt and she tried to push him away. "No!"_

_Raines sighed, holding fast to her hands. "I'm not going to take 'no' for an answer, Melody," he told her. "Now just you smile like a good girl! Smile, Melody!"_

_Parker growled, her eyes darting across the room to the door. She lamely went along with the proceedings, trying not to trip the two of them in her awkwardness. After a while, Raines relaxed and rested one of her hands on his shoulder, and his free hand he placed on her back. Parker tried not to look as disgusted as she felt. But one song was enough, and as the second song began, she pushed his arm down and pulled away roughly, rushing back to the safety of the table. She sat sipping her drink, and told herself she wasn't going to cry. She hated him! She wished he would just go and die! But it wasn't as if there was much of a chance of that wish being granted any time soon._

"_You're just too good to be true, can't take my eyes off of you. You'd be like Heaven to touch; I wanna hold you so much. At long last love has arrived, and I thank God I'm alive. You're just too good to be true, can't take my eyes off of you. Pardon the way that I stare, there's nothing else to compare, the sight of you leaves me weak, there are no words left to speak. But if you feel like I feel, please let me know that it's real. You're just too good to be true, can't take my eyes off of you."_

_Parker looked up from the table cloth, and her heart sank. He wouldn't!_

_Raines took the microphone from its stand, shooting her a wink, and moved around to the front of the stage. "I love you baby, and if it's quite alright, I need you baby, to warm the lonely night, I love you baby, trust in me when I say! Oh pretty baby, don't bring me down, I pray, oh pretty baby, now that I've found you, stay and let me love you, baby, let me love you!"_

_Parker felt her face turn a nasty shade of red. There was nothing for her to do but sit there like a fool and take it._

_When the meal arrived, she spent the longest time carving on her steak, wishing it were really him, then she left half of her meal behind, and declined dessert when Raines offered. She wanted nothing more to do with this man!_

_Back at the car, she snatched the keys from the older man, and stalked around to the driver's side. She would not be in a car with him driving when her stomach was doing back flips as it was! The Hell if the police pulled her over, she'd tell them where to go too!_

_Raines looked about to say something. Parker turned on him viciously. "You make me look a complete and utter fool in front the entire room, and then you ask me if I want dessert! Just who the fuck do you think you are? You are nothing to me! I don't even want to know you!" She stood there in the middle of the parking lot with her chest heaving and on the verge of tears. Raising her hand, she slapped him hard across the face. It was all she could do not to get into the car and leave him to walk all the way back through town. "Now get in the fucking car! And I don't want to hear a word out of you, or – so help me God! – I am going to crash this car and kill us both! I really couldn't give a fuck!"_

_Thankfully, Raines knew when to let well enough alone._

_Pulling into the Center parking lot, she slammed the brakes on and left the car still running, keys in the ignition._

* * *

"You're just too good to be true, can't take my eyes off of you." Parker lay on the sofa and stared at the ceiling, tears drying on her face. "You'd be like Heaven to touch; I wanna hold you so much. At long last love has arrived, and I thank God I'm alive. You're just too good to be true, can't take my eyes off of you."

She'd been so terribly afraid of driving after the accident, she remembered, afraid of anything having at all to do with motor vehicles. Though, she had realised then, that it was not the motor vehicle she need have been afraid of, it was the person driving the vehicle; not that she hadn't trusted Raines to know how to drive a car – everybody always said it wasn't that hard, really – but he'd been drunk, and she'd been scared and sick.

She was never going to be able to have a baby again, they'd said back in Canada, where she'd attended boarding school, and she'd wanted to yell at them: She hadn't had a baby! It had died before it had even been born! She hadn't even known if it was a boy or a girl, for fuck sake!

And her best friend – the best thing that had ever happened to her – had died with it.

She had decided then and there that she was through with love – she wanted nothing more to do with love, and if Love knew what was good for it, it would want nothing more to do with her either!

She sat up and slipped her legs off the sofa, getting to her feet. Then she walked to her bedroom and picked her cell phone up off the mattress and found a number in her address book.

* * *

Parker fixed the coffee machine to make the coffee just the right way she knew Sydney liked it and put one of Lyle's jazz CDs on – she really liked this one – and sat down to wait for Sydney to arrive. When he arrived, they each sat down with a mug of hot coffee and she explained that Paulie had told her about their involvement, and then she told him that if he cared about Paulie – she ignored his quiet comment – then he would end it. Paulie was a married woman. She had a loving husband and a 15-year-old son who adored her, even Debbie was slowly starting to accept her. Over her coffee, Parker fixed her eyes to Sydney's. And after a long silence Sydney reluctantly, but calmly, agreed with her, it was the best course of action for all concerned, of course.

Parker cried when he left. How easily he had just given up!

* * *

"I understand," Paulie said calmly, and was rewarded with a smile from Sydney. Outwardly she was calm and composed, but inside she was screaming – howling! – in pain.

So that was it! It had been good. It had served its purpose. But it was over now. They both agreed. "I understand," she had said. She had not fought, she had not screamed, cried, begged. She had not told him about the baby!

"Paulie?" Sydney's voice drew her gratefully from her tormenting thoughts. He was smiling. She wanted to kiss him. She quashed the urge.

"Have a nice life?" she joked, careful to keep her voice light, to keep it a joke.

Sydney laughed.

She melted inside.

"Something like that." He laughed again.

She gazed, transfixed, into his brown eyes. She would miss doing that. She would miss his eyes.

He shook his head, and reached out a hand.

Oh, he was going to touch her. Paulie held her breath.

His hand came to rest lightly on her arm. "Ah, not quite," he amended. He stopped smiling, a pause for thought.

Paulie suddenly wanted to clamp her hands over her ears, suddenly didn't want to hear what he would say next.

"I'm there if you need to talk," he finished, and he was suddenly smiling again, as though he had never stopped. "Ever."

Paulie felt herself nod. What else could she do! Oh God, she wanted to fall to her knees, beg him to take her back, to reconsider!

He squeezed her arm gently, and then his hand was no longer on her arm, and she was sure she would start crying.

"Aw Hell! I'm sorry!"

He backed her into the wall and kissed her hard. She wasn't sorry one bit.

* * *

_Write me and tell me what you think. TBC?_


	2. Chapter 2

**Once more, for love** by planet p

**Disclaimer** I don't own _the Pretender_ or any of its characters.

* * *

_The little girl was four. She wore a badge pinned to her woollen pullover with the Inca pattern. It read:_ I love Nebraska._ Her mommy had given it to her, and before that, her daddy had given it to her mommy. In return, her mommy had given him her star pin. It meant that they were friends, she knew._

_Sydney ogled nothing. It was a habit of his._

_Her daddy didn't speak as much anymore._

_Sydney was always teasing her with his rude eyes. Staring was very rude. She had always got annoyed when her daddy had talked and talked, but now he hardly talked at all and that annoyed her. She had to make her mind up._

_Her daddy made corned beef sandwiches for her, but it was his birthday, and it wasn't every day they had corned beef._

_She suspected that the only reason he ate anything at all was to please her. She would worry if he didn't eat anything. She would get scared._

_After she'd finished her second sandwich, her daddy took her into the facility where she had lessons normally, but it was past lesson-time._

_He had to work, he said, and did she want anything from the machine. Yes, the one with the drinks._

_She nodded. She did._

_He bought her a Coca-Cola. He had never let her have Coca-Cola before. She knew she should have been glad, but somehow she didn't think she wanted a drink anymore, except that it was in her hands, and Sydney was excited. Stupid Sydney was always excited! He didn't understand anything in that stuffed head of his!_

_Her daddy picked her up. He put her back down._

"_You don't use those legs and they'll fall off," her daddy joked._

_It didn't sound like a joke to her._

_Her daddy made EPs. She liked her daddy's EPs. She watched them when she had lessons with the other children. Her daddy had once told her that EP was an easier way of saying educational programming. An acro-something._

_She sat with her daddy in his office and her daddy typed on the computer that belonged to the people he worked for._

_She wanted to be that good at typing one day, she decided, and poked her tongue out at Sydney because he had laughed._

_EPs were very important, she told Sydney silently, and she was proud of her daddy because even if he wasn't very good at reading, he was good at making EPs. Didn't he know anything? That was why they had given her mommy to her daddy._

_She wished her daddy would touch her. He had always touched her before. She liked when he held her hand, or when he rested his head against hers and she tried to guess what he was thinking of._

_She hid her can of Coca-Cola because she was mad at it, and she didn't want to drink it, but if she just kept looking at it and holding it, she would want to drink it. She was already thirsty._

_Two hours later, her daddy took her for another drink. "Do you want a hot drink?"_

_She nodded._

_The coffee machine was further than the machine with the cold cans. He got a black coffee and a hot chocolate. Her mommy always had black coffee. The hot chocolate was hers. They stood in front of the coffee machine and her daddy blew on her hot chocolate so it could cool before she walked with it because if she spilled it on her hands she would scold them._

_She frowned. Her daddy never had sugar in his coffee. Her mommy had said sugar stopped it from being yuck. Coffee could be bitter without sugar. "You don't have sugar, daddy."_

_A man walked around a corner ahead. She forgot about yucky coffee. She glared. She didn't like the man._

_The man looked at her._

_She told herself to breathe. Breathe, damn it!_

_He looked at her daddy. "Cute tot," he said, strolling over._

_She wanted to reach over and take her daddy's hand, but she told herself it would be okay. Her daddy was here, standing right beside her._

_Her daddy looked at him._

_The man gave her a smile as he passed. "You two have fun," he said._

_Her daddy said nothing – she wanted to shout after the man –__ and when the man was gone, they walked back to her daddy's office._

_She slowly relaxed. __Sydney glared at her for leaving him. He glared at her hot chocolate too. She had forgotten about that hot chocolate._

_They stayed another hour and left. It was cold outside. Her daddy picked her up. She held Sydney and felt happy._

_Her daddy read Sydney and her one of her picture books for bedtime. She sat in his lap and Sydney in her lap and they read the book together and she imitated Sydney's accent. Her daddy didn't stumble once._

_Then they lay down, and she lay on his chest like she always had since her mommy had gone – she could feel him breathing and it made her feel safe – and she fell asleep thinking about wombats._

* * *

How old had Lyle been? Ethan wondered, jotting down the details of the dream in a notebook, a sort of dream diary. In his twenties, he decided. He made a note that the penguin toy had been named Sydney. The little girl – she had to be Lyle and Emily's daughter – had revealed his name when she had wished him goodnight. He made a quick note of the badge. And the little girl's name was? He didn't know. Lyle had not used her name to wish her goodnight. He'd called her darlin' instead.

He thought about Kyle's appearance in the corridor. Scribbled Kyle's name down in capital letters and underscored it twice. He thought back to what Kyle had said to Lyle and the little girl in the corridor, and thought now that there was something to that. The way Kyle had been talking about the two of them as though they were friendly in a way they shouldn't have been, in a way no adult should be with a child. He frowned, confused that Kyle would find that amusing.

He thought about how Lyle had interacted with the little girl. Had anything seemed off? She was his daughter, so it wasn't surprising that she had trusted him.

He thought back to the year he had first met Lyle. It had been 1989. He had been 17 and would be 18 on his birthday in November.

* * *

"_Give me your hands."_

_Ethan made a face._

_Lyle nodded. "Mmm. I'll read your fortune."_

_Ethan very much doubted this. He made sure to fix his face with the proper scepticism, and held out his right hand._

_Lyle took his hand and peered down at his palm. "Are you right-handed?" he questioned absently._

"_Yeah," Ethan replied, noting the wooden beads Lyle wore on his right wrist._

"_They're cool, huh?"_

_Ethan frowned._

_Lyle lifted his gaze to meet Ethan's. He shot a glance at the beads._

_Ethan shrugged. "They're okay," he said._

"_They're for protection," Lyle explained._

_Ethan gazed into his eyes – too large, too blue, like bug's eyes, or the eyes of those toys, Furbies, he even had the long eyelashes – and wondered if he'd taken drugs. __"What do they protect you against?" he asked._

"_Bad spirits."_

_Ethan grinned._

_Lyle looked at him. "You ever had bourbon? It's awful. Don't."_

_Ethan snorted. He recovered and said, "You're the psychic. Shouldn't you know the answer to that without having to ask?"_

_Lyle smiled. "That's the Coca-Cola version. Too much sugar. Bad for your complexion."_

_Ethan made a face. "Is there anything you _can_ tell me?"_

_Lyle smiled. "Do you have a girlfriend?"_

_Ethan blinked, leaning away from Lyle, annoyed and disgusted. "No."_

"_Do you believe in love?"_

_Ethan snorted._

"_You don't?"_

"_Do you?" Ethan asked, glancing at the old scars on Lyle's wrists, the scar in his right hand palm._

"_Yes."_

"_I don't know," Ethan finally said._

_Lyle glanced at him._

"_So hit me with the Coca-Cola version," Ethan resigned._

_Lyle smiled, before arranging his expression into something more serious. "Her name is Syke. She has brown eyes and," he reached across with his left hand and picked at a strand of Ethan's dark brown hair, "ginger hair."_

_Ethan snorted. Yeah sure!_

_Lyle let go of his hands._

_Ethan didn't believe Lyle and he didn't really think he was psychic. He hoped Raines would hurry up and arrive so he would scare the man – whose name he would not know until later – away._

* * *

Ethan shuddered and added several question marks at the end of his diary entry, before snapping the notebook shut.

* * *

Jarod swore. This was ridiculous! He was a Pretender. A genius. He closed his eyes to calm himself. Perhaps he would have to ask for Mo's assistance? He smiled. Oh, they were good! But he was good too!

* * *

Parker walked to the front door and pulled it open.

Sydney smiled.

Parker frowned.

"Are you going to invite me in?" Sydney asked.

Parker stepped back from the door. "Come in," she said, with a short nod. "Coffee?" she asked, once Sydney had stepped inside and she had shut the door again.

"That would be nice, thank you," Sydney replied.

Parker walked to the kitchen. It was Saturday. Valor would want to sleep in. Parker busied herself with the coffee machine.

Sydney walked over to stand beside her, watching her. He tilted his head a little and smiled. "You left a message on my answering machine?"

"No I didn't," Parker replied dismissively.

"Yes. You did."

Parker turned to him, annoyed. "Yesterday!"

"Exactly," Sydney said.

She crossed her arms. His constant smiling was starting to annoy her. Sydney remained watching her. She made a face and turned away from him. "You agreed you would end it!" she reminded him.

"End what, Miss Parker?"

Parker spun about, glaring. He might have found it amusing, but, in her mind, it couldn't be any farther from amusing.

"End what, Miss Parker?" Sydney repeated.

"Why are you doing this?" Parker demanded, voice raised.

Sydney stopped smiling. "What am I doing, Miss Parker?"

"This! Denying!"

"I am not denying anything, Miss Parker," Sydney told her, frowning. "What is it that you think I am denying? Why don't you tell me? Hmm?"

Parker laughed harshly. "Don't so this."

"Do what?" Sydney asked.

Parker choked. "This Miss Parker shit! I thought we had an understanding!"

Sydney blinked, completely serious now. "I don't understand," he said.

"PAULIE!" Parker screamed.

"What about Paulie?" Sydney asked calmly, without raising his voice.

Parker raised a hand and slapped him.

Sydney stepped back from her sharply, visibly disturbed.

Parker stood glaring at him.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Sydney said finally. "I think it's time I left." He turned and walked toward the kitchen door.

"No! No!" Parker caught his arm and pulled him around to face her. "We had an agreement!" she told him hotly.

Sydney pulled his arm from her grasp. "We had no such agreement!" he told her coldly.

Parker stared at him. _He_ was upset! What right did he have when he was the one fucking her little sister! She took out her gun and trained it on his chest.

Sydney backed away from her.

"She's my sister," Parker told him, a slight whine evident in her voice.

"I'm not trying to hurt your sister, Miss Parker," Sydney told her seriously, keeping his gaze locked with hers.

"Just say you'll end it," Parker whined. The gun shook in her trembling hand.

"Yes. Alright," Sydney agreed, fighting to keep his voice level. His heart was racing painfully. "I'll end it."

Parker sighed. She put the gun away.

Sydney stared at her, unable to look away. It wouldn't do well to make any sudden movements, he thought strangely – as if he could move! – and realised that his hands were shaking.

"Will you be staying for coffee?" Parker asked suddenly.

Sydney continued to stare for a moment before he nodded sharply. "I think so. Yes." He stowed his shaking hands into his pockets.

* * *

Sydney slammed the door after himself and slid down the door to the floor. What the Hell had he done? He took measured breaths to calm himself. Parker hadn't really been serious, he told himself. She wouldn't really have shot him. What a load of nonsense! He stopped the ridiculous breathing exercise and cried.

Later, he stood and walked into the lounge room and pressed the 'message' button on his answering machine to hear his messages. There were no new messages. Parker's voice came over the speakers. "We need to talk," and then nothing.

Sydney closed his eyes. What was going on? He just wished he knew! Was that so much to ask for?

He left the room and walked to his study where he opened his filing cabinet and pulled out one of his psychology journals. He sat down in the chair behind his desk and opened the journal and turned to Bartholomew's article, thinking about the time he had almost met Bartholomew. If only Raines hadn't ruined that for him by getting them lost. Bartholomew had already left by the time they had finally found where they were meant to be.

* * *

The phone rang again at 6 P.M. Sydney let the answering machine pick up. "I made a mistake," Parker's voice drifted in through the study door. "I want to make it up to you. Come over."

Sydney stared blankly at the framed certificates on his wall for a long time. He stood up. Parker was right, they needed to talk.

* * *

Valor came to the door with Parker when Sydney rang the door bell. The girl was wearing a puffy jacket, and mittens with a palm tree motif. She walked out of the house and Parker followed her out and pulled the door shut.

Sydney stood and watched and didn't say anything.

"Syd," Parker acknowledged. "What do you think about pizza?"

Valor grabbed Sydney's hand.

Sydney frowned, but Parker was already halfway to her SUV.

Confused, Sydney followed, Valor still holding his hand.

"Do you like my jacket?" Valor asked.

Sydney looked at her.

"Indiana gave it to me," Valor told him.

Sydney nodded.

Valor smiled to herself and stopped beside the SUV to wait for Parker to unlock the doors so she could get inside. Once the doors were opened, Valor climbed in the back and pulled the door closed after herself.

Sydney supposed that meant he was to sit in the front with Parker.

Parker pulled the SUV up in front of a pizza house, its windows surrounded by flashing lights. Parker held the door open for Valor and Sydney before walking in after them. They took a table by the window and the flashing lights.

Valor put her mittened hands over her cheeks, waiting for their order to arrive.

"It is a nice jacket," Sydney said after some time of nobody speaking.

Valor took her hands away from her cheeks and smiled at him.

The coffees and hot chocolate arrived.

"Take your mittens off, Valor," Parker said.

Valor removed her mittens and put them on the table beside her.

By the time the two pizzas came out, Sydney had finished his coffee.

Valor smiled at the waiter and waited for Parker to put a piece of pizza on her plate.

Parker walked to the counter and ordered another round of coffees and got Valor a blueberry Coke from the refrigerator.

Valor smiled at Sydney from across the table. She hadn't even had to ask.

She had Lyle's eyes, Sydney thought, and Reagan's eyes. The blue was lighter, but the shape was the same.

Parker returned and passed Valor her Coke before sitting down.

Valor smiled at her.

Parker served herself another piece of pizza and glanced at Sydney. The pizza wasn't going to eat itself, after all.

Sydney nodded shortly and was served another piece of pizza.

"Thank you," Valor said brightly when the same waiter came out with the coffees for Parker and Sydney.

Parker glanced at her and smiled.

Valor looked at her plate and took a bite out of her pizza.

Parker looked at Sydney and grinned, before taking a sip of her coffee, plus two sugars. Valor liked the waiter.

Valor went to the bathroom to wash her hands, and walked to the counter to say goodbye to the staff before they left, mittens back on her hands. She waved to the young man who had been their waiter.

The young man waved back shortly.

They stood on the porch to Parker's house. "Goodnight, Sydney," Valor said before walking inside.

"Goodnight, Valor."

Parker stood very still for a moment, before she nodded, and shut the door after her.

Sydney stared at the porch floor for a while, then he turned and walked back to his car, shoes crunching on the shining white gravel.

* * *

Sydney smiled from across the room.

Paulie slipped her high heels off her feet and sauntered over and into his arms, and they danced every ballroom dance Paulie knew and some she didn't, and one which had her laughing hysterically.

Sydney walked with her to the sofa and she lay down and gazed up at him. "I like your music," she told him gently as he stroked her hair.

* * *

_???_


	3. Chapter 3

**Once more, for love** by planet p

**Disclaimer** I don't own _the Pretender_ or any of its characters.

* * *

Parker found the notebook at the back of the shelf behind the book she had just taken out of the shelf. She reached her hand behind the books to the back of the shelf and pulled out the notebook. It was fluffy and pink. She opened to the first page and read off a list of names. She paused at the names Catherine and Elaine, and further down, Katrina and Ella. The last entry, Sumalee Ray, had been underlined in pink. Beside this was written: _Anton's baby sister_. Parker snapped the notebook shut and stowed it back behind the shelf, replacing the book she had taken out to read.

Parker left her sister's office and walked to the elevator where she hit the button to take her to Tech Space on SL-5, and Heathrow Lounge, an open plan lounge sandwiched in between the automatic doors, cubicles and workstations of Tech Space and the corridor and automatic doors announcing Tech Space. Once there, she walked to the coffee machine, added her coins, and hit another button to make her selection. She glanced at the large framed print of a jumbo jet on a black tarmac as she waited for her coffee to be ready, and thought that perhaps a vacation wouldn't be such a bad thing.

The machine beeped and she turned to retrieve her coffee and walked across the room and sat down at one of the sofas. She placed her coffee down at the low table in front of her to allow it to cool. She could not believe how upset seeing that stupid fluffy pink notebook with its list of baby names had made her. Was she upset because Paulie had been having an affair with Sydney, because she had been cheating on Broots, and that she had fallen pregnant? Was she upset at Paulie, or Sydney? Was she upset for Broots: his wife had cheated on him with another man, and a close friend? Or was she upset for herself: Paulie was going to have a baby, another baby? Did she want Paulie to tell Sydney that she was carrying his baby, or did she want Paulie to let Broots think the baby was his, or did she want Paulie to get rid of it, have an abortion? It was hardly the baby's fault, she knew. But then she thought of what would happen if Broots found out about Paulie and Sydney, and then found out the baby his wife was going to have was not his, but Sydney's. It would change everything! She felt like crying suddenly, and she suddenly hated Sydney and Paulie, and then she hated herself for hating them. She didn't want things to change! And then she thought about Anton. Oh, why hadn't Paulie thought of Anton, if nothing or no one else?

* * *

"Is everything okay?"

The voice brought her quickly out of her thoughts and she looked up to see Broots' frowning, concerned face.

Parker nodded quickly. "Everything is fine," she told him.

Broots smiled hesitantly.

"What happened to the other coffee machine?" Parker asked. "The smaller, _free_ coffee machine?"

Broots turned and glanced at the large coin-operated coffee machine. "It broke. This one's just temporary." He turned back to glance at her coffee on the table.

She reached over and picked it up and took a large sip. "It's not bad."

Broots smiled nervously. "No." He sighed. "I have to go back to work."

Parker nodded again, and took another sip of her coffee. "Okay." She watched Broots walk away and the automatic doors first open before and then close after his retreating figure. She returned her coffee to the table and sat back on the sofa and closed her eyes.

* * *

"James, I'd rather not hear of the boy, if it's all the same to you."

Mr. Parker glanced, momentarily disturbed, into his wife's face.

Catherine gave a short, derisive laugh, and turned her gaze from his.

Lying on the expensive couch, two-year-old Miss Parker's fingers flexed backward in her sleep. Catherine considered her daughter for a moment, before returning her attention to the magazine she held in her hands over her lap.

Mr. Parker reached out a hand and gently touched the sleeping child's arm. "It's okay, baby," he reassured her quietly, echoing that familiar term of endearment his wife used on the child.

Catherine, eyes still fixed on her magazine, gave a snort of derision.

Mr. Parker stepped back from the child and turned, refusing to show his upset in front of his wife, and walked from the room, in mind of stopping in the kitchen for a glass of water.

"Oh, James!"

He froze in the doorway, and forced himself to turn and face his beautiful wife he could not bring to tell that she was perhaps a sliver too slim.

Catherine beamed at him. "I love you," she told him earnestly.

"I love you too," he told her, his chest suddenly painful. Then he turned and left the room. He stopped in the kitchen on the way out of the house and asked the Texan maid, Raeanne, for a glass of water, which he was supplied.

Miss Parker would leave again tomorrow morning, he knew. She only ever stayed over on Tuesdays, though, today instead of arriving before dinner, she had been dropped off before lunch so that she could spend lunch with her mother and father, and spend some time with her mother in the afternoon.

Due to her condition, Catherine was not able to handle looking after Miss Parker for any serious length of time, which was why Mr. Parker had sent her to stay with another family who also had a young daughter. Annie was four years older than Miss Parker, but the two girls were close, and Mr. Parker was glad that Miss Parker had a friend.

It was only a matter of time before Catherine recovered, and at that time Miss Parker would return to live with her parents.

Reaching the door, he pulled it open and stepped outside, then pulled it closed after himself and walked to his car, parked in the driveway.

Theodore had secured the Blue Cove branch was it needed: a future. And for that, he had to be grateful, Mr. Parker thought. Theodore was not going to get better, he realised, because there was nothing _really_ wrong with him, nothing that could be fixed anyway. He had to stop thinking of the boy as Catherine and his son, and as Miss Parker's twin. He'd never regretted his decision to send the boy away – to get better, to be fixed – but he often wondered if Catherine had regretted allowing it, despite the good it had – at first, unknowingly – done, when it had been discovered that Theodore was not sick, that he did not need to be fixed, but that he needed to be helped, because he was a very special little boy.

Though he would never admit it, Catherine scared him very much how she did not so much as _want_ to hear even a word of her own son, how she had asked not to be told of him, and how cold she grew when mention of him arose.

She knew he was not dead – as the official reports told, and the reason for her inability to raise her surviving daughter – so he could not understand how she could be so disinterested in her own baby, how she could reject even the mention of him, how she could be so indifferent to both of her children! Sometimes he thought it was out of guilt. But it was the illness – the true illness – he supposed.

The illness that was slowly, but surely, stealing from him the woman he had fallen in love with and married.

* * *

Mr. Parker accepted Lyle as his son, as Miss Parker's twin, though he knew that he was neither of these things. Theodore was unstable, dangerous, and in the outside world, even more so, a danger to others and to himself. If Mr. Parker had thought for a moment that Lyle really was Theodore, he would not have let him anywhere near his daughter.

As a four-year-old, Theodore had dispatched of fifty-two people without ever touching them, their brains turned to 'milkshake' as Cox had so eloquently put it when he had been assigned to autopsy the bodies, in the course of his employment under the African branch.

They would never know who had come to 'rescue' the little boy, Mr. Parker conceded, only that he assumed that both the rescuers and the rescued had perished when they had foolishly taken the child from the controlled environment in which he had been kept since the second day of his tiny life, and had woken him from the state of unconsciousness that he had resided in until that day, unleashing, for eighteen brief minutes, Hell on earth. There was no way the four-year-old could have dealt with the onslaught of stimulus that he must have experienced.

Quite aside from this fact, Lyle did not look like he was Miss Parker's brother, let alone twin. As small children, Miss Parker and Theodore had shared almost identical characteristics. In fact, Mr. Parker was certain that the only difference between the two had been that Theodore had not been female, and had had curly hair, where Miss Parker's had always been straight. On all of the DSAs he had seen, this had certainly been the case.

None of this troubled him, however, as he was merely contented that after Miss Parker had learned that she had a twin brother, that someone suitable had been there to fill the void. The boy was clearly troubled, he knew, but he was sure that Raines was not about to let the boy put him in ill-favour, and possibly endanger everything he had been working toward his whole career – whatever that may have been – by doing something to harm Miss Parker.

Miss Parker believed that he was her twin, and he had better make it look as though he believed the same thing, because Mr. Parker would hate to have to replace him now that his daughter had gotten so attached to him. Not to mention how hard it could possibly turn out to find a suitable replacement who possessed the identical expression of the anomaly as Miss Parker. And it had to be believable, after all.

Still, he sensed that as troubled as the boy was, that he actually believed that Miss Parker was his sister, and that just maybe this meant something to him. Which was fine, as long as he never found out that Miss Parker was no more his sister than Ultra – an absurdly unlikely prospect given that she was nineteen years his junior and a famous porn star.

All in all, he admitted, Raines had done a good job, which was a rare thing, all things considered.

* * *

Parker returned to Paulie's office to find her sister working on her paperwork, earphones on, listening to the Spice Girl's _Spice up Your Life_, which Parker knew because of the fact that she was singing along to it loudly. The fact that the Spice Girls were Paulie's favourite band – _Viva Forever_ was her favourite song – would also seem to testament in favour of this observation.

"Paulie!"

Paulie looked up from her paperwork suddenly, and seeing Parker, smiled and removed her earphones. "Parker," she greeted.

Parker walked up to her and stopped beside her desk. "How are you?" she asked.

"I'm fine," she replied.

Parker frowned. "And what about… Sydney?"

"Sydney's fine too… I suppose," Paulie replied. She smiled. "He did the right thing." She put a hand over her mouth momentarily. "We decided it was best to end it."

Parker reached out a hand and touched her sister's arm.

Paulie smiled at her.

"What about the baby?" Parker asked slowly, quietly.

Paulie leant over and rested her head on Parker's arm. "You won't tell Broots she isn't his if I tell him she is, will you?" she asked tenderly.

Parker placed a hand on her hair. "No, of course not," she said.

Paulie smiled. "Thank you, sis. I love you, you know that right?"

"I know," Parker echoed. She resisted the urge to take her hand from Paulie's hair to rub her face. "She?" she asked.

Paulie suddenly pulled her head from Parker's arm, straightened, and looked up at her excitedly. "Yes, I'm sure she's a she!" She laughed ecstatically at her slip – _she's_ instead of _it's_ – eyes smiling as well as her mouth.

Parker smiled too. "That's great. Do you know what you're going to name her yet?"

Paulie bit her lip. "I'm not sure," she said uncertainly. "I think I should tell Broots first. Before I decide on a name, I mean."

"That's a good idea," Parker agreed.

* * *

_So, do you think I should continue?_


	4. Chapter 4

**Once more, for love** by planet p

**Disclaimer** I don't own _the Pretender_ or any of its characters.

* * *

Debbie stared at the 66-year-old woman standing before her, the once red hair now grey, the blue eyes, her own eyes. The old woman was her mother.

Debbie shook her head and turned away from the old woman, auburn hair turning with her. As she walked, she listened to the clack-clack of her heels. She had nothing to say to the old woman.

She stopped around the corner and choked. Then she turned resolutely and walked back the way she had come and strode up to her mother and pulled the old woman into her arms. "I won't become a bitch for anyone," Debbie told her mother determinately.

* * *

Debbie slipped into a seat at a table at the back of the little café, Bambi's Hideaway, Alicia taking a seat across from her. Despite her age, Alicia looked good.

Debbie took in the wallpaper, an emerald forest plastered across the walls, and the bright green carpet and false stone pathways through the carpet leading to the tables.

"What do you do?" Alicia asked.

Debbie glanced at her. "I'm a doctor," she replied, remembering her earlier oath.

Alicia smiled.

Debbie said nothing. Later, a waitress appeared at the table with their coffees. Debbie thanked her and she walked away.

"This place is ridiculous," Alicia admitted of the décor, amused.

Debbie watched the older woman's smile. "My boyfriend works for the Center," she told her, without really knowing why.

Alicia stopped smiling, her face suddenly a mask of fear.

Debbie felt a sudden stab of fear in her own chest. There was no reason for her mother to be afraid of the Center, she told herself sternly. She wanted to shout. No! But the only person her mother had known who'd worked for the Center had been Lyle. But Lyle had been her friend! She refused to believe that he had hurt her mother. He'd saved her life! Hadn't he? Powerless to stop them, tears welled in her eyes.

Seeing her expression, Alicia attempted to rearrange her own expression.

"What did he do?" Debbie asked, voice low and shaking.

Alicia frowned.

"Lyle?" Debbie whined, brushing at the angry tears that had tumbled from her eyes.

"Nothing," Alicia replied, confused. "He didn't do anything." She dropped her gaze to the table, frown deepening. "I'm a Pretender."

Debbie gasped and leapt up from her chair, tears coming down her face, and backed away, toppling the chair and almost falling over it backward.

Alicia stood up now too.

Shaking all over, Debbie stepped around the chair and fled from the little café.

* * *

Cox wrapped Debbie in his arms and held her tightly. He didn't know what to say to her. Didn't know how to tell her that, in a way, he had known all along, that he'd felt the anomaly in her, but that he hadn't felt the same in her father. And in all honesty, he'd felt certain that she was neither a Healer, Reaper, or Empath, nor that she possessed the Inner Sense, which left the only plausible option as to her expression as either that of a Pretender, or a Mediator, which was far rarer than the Pretender expression, and thus unlikely.

He did not believe that the anomaly, if inherited, could exist in an unexpressed, recessive form, or that, in the very least, if it indeed could exist such, he had ever met any such individuals, nor had he heard credible tale of such.

It was true that the Center, and several smaller rivals, claimed to have acquired numerous individuals in which the anomaly was not expressed, individuals whom Cox was certain were in fact Mediators, an expression recognised solely by T-Corp. He remembered hearing that Raines had once asked the Tower to consider assigning a Mediator to Jarod, and that the Tower had merely laughed at him. Yet, one of Cox's closest and most trusted friends was a Mediator. They were real, they existed.

He held Debbie tight to him and let her cry. He had told her of his being a Healer, he had told her of his sister's murder, of which he had been accused, of Patience Cox's accusation that he had been sexually abusing his sister for years before he'd murdered her, yet he could not bring himself to reveal what was slowly killing him inside not to tell her.

* * *

When, finally, Debbie had fallen asleep, Cox sat and just watched her. He had no doubt that Lyle had known the truth all along. It had been said that he'd been a Pretender – Cox was not fully convinced – and it had been said that he'd had the Inner Sense – which Cox had to concede possible – but he'd known that if indeed Lyle had possessed either of these expressions, they were not all that he had possessed. It had been Lyle, after all, who had come to him and told him of Debbie, told him of their Convergence, explained that there were many ways that people loved one another, many ways that people could be together, and had told him in no uncertain terms that if he hurt Debbie, who'd first come to Blue Cove as an eleven-year-old, one year before his own arrival back in the USA from Africa, that he knew where he lived and that he knew how to make people hurt, make them _want_ to die. And, of course, Debbie, years later, had told him that Lyle had told her too, of their Convergence, and a lot of stuff about a movie called _Frankie & Johnny_ – starring Al Pacino and Michelle Pfeiffer – he hadn't quite understood.

He was not sure how Lyle had known that Debbie and he would have Convergence by merely meeting them, and without having met them together, but then again, he knew, there were a lot of things Lyle had known that he really had no cause to know.

There were secrets, he knew too, that Debbie kept, secrets that had once belonged to no one else but she and Lyle – and now that Lyle was dead – that belonged alone to her, secrets that he knew better than to ask after. A secret shared was as dangerous as a secret kept.

* * *

When Debbie woke, he explained about the female Pretender, Alicia, whom Catherine Parker had rescued in 1969, and Debbie cried again, and he held her again.

He could never, never hurt her, he whispered into her hair. Her soul was a part of his soul, his soul a part of her soul, and if he hurt her, he hurt himself too.

"I could never hurt you either," Debbie whispered back to him. "Your heart is a part of my heart, and my heart is a part of your heart. If I break your heart, I break my heart too, break our heart." She spluttered, laughing softly as tears continued to roll down her face. "I don't want to break our heart."

Cox smiled and held her closer. "I don't want to break our heart either," he told her honestly.

* * *

The next day, Debbie and Cox took a table at the back of Bambi's Hideaway, smiling at the décor.

"This is my boyfriend," Debbie told her mother, seated across the table from the smiling couple.

Cox held out a hand, which Alicia shook. "Jules Cox," he supplied.

Alicia nodded, watching him critically.

"Jules is a doctor too," Debbie told her mother, whose eyes she saw, had already gone to the Director of Med Space pin he wore.

"If you hurt my daughter," Alicia told him seriously, "I will hunt you down."

Cox nodded solemnly, a small smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. He expected no less.

"Mom!" Debbie gasped, thinking as she did that it was strange how easily the word had come out after all this time.

Cox chuckled, and Debbie turned to him, scandalised. He only laughed harder, and then Debbie was smiling and laughing too, and across the table, Alicia gave a brief smile.

* * *

_So, what do you think?_


	5. Chapter 5

**Once more, for love** by planet p

**Disclaimer** I don't own _the Pretender_ or any of its characters.

* * *

"Her name is Kami," Sam told her as he passed her the photograph.

Parker glanced down at the baby picture. Kami had the blue of Sam's eyes, but the exotic shape of Midori's eyes. "She's beautiful," she told Sam, handing the photograph back to him.

He passed it to Sydney. "She is beautiful," Sydney agreed, smiling at Sam, and then at Parker – for the compliment, she supposed – and passed the photograph back to Sam.

Parker stared at the bullet hole in the top corner of the elevator wall whilst Sydney asked after Kami and Midori's health. She closed her eyes.

She was fifteen. She'd been attending boarding school in Canada for four years, and at the moment she was running across the grass toward the ball, hockey stick in hand. One of the other girls got there first. She sighed and rested her weight on her hockey stick, bored and tired. One moment she was standing leant on her hockey stick, the next she was lying, unmoving, on the grass, clouds passing in her unseeing eyes.

The elevator sounded and the doors opened, admitting a young woman in an expensive navy skirt suit.

It was said that she'd been dead for three minutes before they could restart her heart and get her breathing again. Later, she walked to the same spot on the field and lay down on the grass and stared up at the shifting clouds, grass prickling her arms and legs, and against the sides of her face, soft breeze pushing hair into her face.

It would be a long time before someone would come along she could actually call a friend.

She wondered if it was Jarod, if it meant Jarod was dead. When he had bad dreams, she could feel them, and she could make them go away. She had done it before. She prayed that he was not dead. When the feelings came again that would keep her from sleeping, she knew that he was alright, that if he had died, they had brought him back again. She smiled and dreamt of shifting clouds.

Parker sighed. The elevator sounded again. She nodded to Sam and stepped out of the elevator, Sydney at her side. She glanced sideways at Sydney and smiled, turning and leaning closer. She reached out a hand and touched his face. "Kami," she whispered.

Sydney frowned, worried.

Parker sniffed. "I'm fine," she told him before he asked. "It's just a cute name, don't you think?"

"I suppose," Sydney agreed.

Parker dropped her hand from his face. She straightened and turned so that they were standing side by side once more. They walked for some time without words. And then: "Sydney, did Jarod ever die?"

Sydney looked at her, alarmed.

"I mean, did his heart ever stop?" Parker pressed, eyes fixed ahead of her as she walked. "When he was seventeen?"

Sydney blinked. "No," he said, finally.

"Okay," Parker replied.

"Where does this come from, Miss Parker?" Sydney asked, glancing at her seriously.

Parker stopped and turned to him. "When I was fifteen, I died. My heart stopped." She frowned. "That's all."

Sydney frowned at her dismissive remark.

"Just for three minutes," Parker told him. "They brought me back."

Sydney stared at her for a long moment, and then he turned and walked away.

Parker sighed and walked after him. If Jarod had died, Sydney had not known about it, she decided, watching him as he walked ahead of her. She wondered if she had upset him, and wanted to hug him. Or maybe it was just that elevator that had upset her, she thought. She tried not to think what she and Sam's baby would have looked like had it survived, if it would have been a he or a she.

* * *

"Has- has Paulie told you?" Broots stammered excitedly, hurrying towards them. They hadn't even reached Sydney's office.

"Told me what?" Parker asked, though she thought she knew what the answer would be, and it made her chest hurt.

"She told me… A-anton and-and I… last night," Broots stumbled in that same excited voice, grinning.

"T-t-told Anton and you-you what?" Parker asked.

Broots took a breath and leant closer, lowering his voice. "We're having a baby!" he told Parker and Sydney. "We're having another baby." And then he couldn't stop it, he had to tell them everything. "P-paulie says it's- she's going to be a girl. Can you believe it? A baby girl! We-we've decided to name her Sum-sumalee."

Parker turned to Sydney, who was smiling, and narrowed her eyes. "Sum-sumalee," she told him in a gruff voice.

"That's wonderful news, Broots," Sydney told the younger man.

"Have you told Debbie yet?" Parker asked.

Broots shook his head, and a moment later, he had hurried away, apparently to phone Debbie and inform her of the wonderful news.

When she turned back to look at Sydney, he was frowning at her.

"I think you could have been a little less mocking, Miss Parker," he told her.

Parker prodded him in the chest and walked on ahead, throwing a casual, "Nah, I already knew," behind her as she went.

"I don't understand," Sydney said from behind her.

Parker spun about. "Paulie told me already!" she hissed between her teeth. "Twins, Syd!"

Sydney frowned, and then sighed. "You didn't have to-" He prodded his chest to illustrate.

Parker shrugged, and spun back around and marched away.

* * *

Sitting in her SUV in the underground parking, Parker put one of Lyle's CDs – Julio Iglesias, 1100 Bel Air Place – in the CD player and turned the volume up loud, and sat back and closed her eyes.

She took some deep breaths and opened her eyes again, pulling a box from the seat next to hers into her lap and lifting the lid off and placing it down on the seat she had taken the box from moments before.

She pulled out several papers and started to read one of them. She laughed out loud at the music, and turned the page.

She had read through three of the papers by the time she heard a sharp knock on the window on her side and turned to see who had knocked.

Seeing who it was, she put the paper she had been reading down and opened the car door, loud music tumbling out. "Do you like this music?" Parker asked, leaning across and turning the volume dial down.

Sydney stared her, seeming to consider her question.

"Lyle's!" Parker told him with wide eyes. She laughed hysterically.

"Do you like it?" Sydney asked her.

Parker laughed again. "Yeah, I like it," she told him, sobering. She shook her head. "Do you miss Raines?" she asked after a moment.

Sydney stared at her.

"I mean, do you miss arguing with him?" Parker added, shrugging.

Sydney laughed. "Oh no!" he told her with a smile.

Parker smiled too. "Sometimes I miss arguing with-" Throwing back her wrist, she pointed a finger over her shoulder in the direction of the CD player and narrowed her eyes.

"They have been gone a long time now," Sydney told her, still smiling. "I cannot say I think about them very often."

Parker stopped smiling. "You're right," she said after a moment.

Sydney frowned.

Parker laughed and punched him playfully in the arm. "Thanks!"

* * *

Once, when Bobby was fifteen, he had died, Parker thought, lying on the grass in the backyard of her house and watching the cloudless sky.

"A plane!" Valor cried, pointing, lying beside her on the grass.

Parker smiled. She could see the plane too, and behind it, a long ribbon of white that would later disperse into a cloud-like trail, stepping stones across the sky that never reached the horizon.

* * *

_How am I doing so far? Too weird? TBC?_


End file.
